


HEARTFROST (the winter of our discontent)

by Mikkeneko



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caduceus and Molly at the same time because I said so, Gen, Gift Fic, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Mollymauk Tealeaf Lives, Sad Molly in Snow, Sickfic, Whump, episode 72 spoilers, polymorph as first aid, tiefling physiology headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-18 18:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20317825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: Tieflings run hot, but that means that they don't do so well in the cold. During the trek across the Greying Wildlands Mollymauk becomes dangerously chilled. Caleb helps out, and has some helpful words to offer about grief as well.





	HEARTFROST (the winter of our discontent)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CatKing_Catkin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/gifts).

> Birthday Gift Fic for @[pangurbanthewhite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catking_catkin) ! Y'all need to stop being born, this is too many gifts XD The request was for Molly Whump, which I hope delivers. I was hoping to sneak in a bit of Widomauk in there but then Molly and Caleb decided they wanted to talk about grief instead. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

  
Snow is bullshit _ . _

That's what Molly thinks, and he's finally got the first-hand experience to say so. Oh, he knew what snow  _ was, _ before this. He heard stories, and by the time his second winter came around he was lucid enough to appreciate it. But snow in the southern reaches of the Empire tends to be sodden and chilly rather than outright frozen, and the winter of 834 had been a mild one, and the three snowfalls Molly actually witnessed had mostly melted by the next day. 

Actual snowscapes, frozen landscapes of glittering ice and blinding, pristine snow (Molly still isn't quite sure what  _ pristine _ means, from context he figured it meant something like  _ pretty) _ are things he'd only encountered in stories, in the plays the Moondrop put on or the fairy tales he and Toya read aloud together. They sounded pretty, ice sculptures and delicate snowflakes and crystalline brooks and smooth, pure drifts of snow.

Snow is  _ bullshit. _

None of the stories, none of the tales, nothing prepared him for how  _ wet _ snow is. How dirty and messy those perfect snowdrifts get when seven people have floundered through them. How it gets under your collar and up your sleeves and down your unmentionables and turns to frigid water, soaking through every layer you've got on. And he has a few, the Dusts wouldn't let him leave the volcano until every visible inch of him was covered up, but it hasn't proved enough.

(Even Caleb got in on it, swooping down on Molly as they assembled for the final departure with firm hands and a scolding tongue. "You will be cold, Molly!" he'd chided as he laced Molly's tunic firmly closed, and this wasn't exactly  _ how _ he'd envisioned snaring Caleb with the enticing cut of his shirt but what the fuck, he'd take it.)

And it was fun at first -- well, exciting -- well,  _ novel, _ and Mollymauk is all about trying anything once. But hour piled on hour as they trudged through the Greying Wildlands, every step through the heavy, clinging, sliding snow feeling like ten. Walking through the snow is an ordeal that leaves him sweating through all his thick layers, and then that sweat chills against his skin, and so -- 

So then they'd run into a giant flaming ice-bug and its spawn, because that was just their  _ fucking _ luck. So what.

So what if he'd been down to just one sword because he'd given Summer's Dance to Fjord, in an effort to keep him safe and reassure him that he was useful and valued and cared for.

So what if he'd run in to keep the thing occupied at close range when Beau fell back, swearing and nursing her burned hands, yelling about its fire aura and immunity to ice.

So what if he'd gotten fucking  _ swallowed _ and had stewed in the thing's belly for long enough that its stomach acid ate through his clothes and halfway into his skin before the others had managed to kill it and drag him out. Better him than Caduceus, who'd at least been there to heal him as soon as he'd gotten free.

So what if the fight had taken too long, and taken too much of a toll on them all because their biggest ace in the sleeve, their best melee fighter and damage tanker had been  _ left behind in that godsforsaken tomb with that monster -- _

Deep breaths. One foot in front of another. The snow-worm was an hour ago and there's still no end in sight. His armor was badly eroded by the acid and what of his clothes hadn't been frayed away is soaked through by being thrown around in the snow. Not all the walking in the world can warm him up now, with the cold closing through every patch and tear. He rubs his hands over his arms, discreetly, when he thinks the others can't see. Not much risk of that; he lagged to the back some time ago and the rest of them have gone on ahead, talking to each other and not looking back.

Not that he can blame them. He hasn't been much fun to be around the past few weeks. He just hasn't had the heart for any of his usual flash and flamboyance, and without that what is he? Too boring for Jester, too immature for Fjord, too flippant for Nott, too obnoxious for Beau, too stupid for Caleb. Too  _ much, _ and at the same time, never enough.

He never -- really  _ stops _ missing Yasha, but right now he misses her warmth most of all. Curling up next to Yasha was like huddling up against a woodstove on a nippy autumn night. He's always been sensitive to the cold but she radiates heat the same way she'd radiates strength, calmness, the serenity of absolutely notgivingafuckness about whatever anyone thinks about her.

He misses that now.

Where is this fucking town? It feels like they'd been walking for days and every step is harder than the last. He lost feeling in his feet some time ago, hauling them up and down at the end of his legs like blocks of lead, and that doesn't seem normal but what does he know about cold? Jester seems just fine, prancing ahead in the snow like she's out for a romp and she knows more about being a tiefling than he does, that's for sure. No one else seems to be having this much trouble? Maybe this is just how winter is supposed to be and for some reason everyone else can handle it and he can't.

They have to find this underground city, they have to chase this vision and fix this sword and he honestly isn't sure  _ why, _ isn't sure how this is supposed to help them gain favor with the Bright Queen or stop the war or save Yasha or do  _ anything at all, _ but Clay seems damn sure that this sword will help them  _ somehow  _ and that's more sure than Molly's been of anything for a long time.

The cold closes in around him like a physical weight, like a sheet of rubber that wraps around him and pulls him down. Every step was slower and slower, unless the rest of them were picking up speed and where did they find the energy? Time to pick up the pace unless they wanted to spend another night out in the middle of nowhere, piling into Caleb's hut like a litter of puppies and while he can't say he minds that, the feeling of closeness and touch that he's missed so much, for so  _ fucking _ long, he just wants to be done with this trip and out of this snow.

Molly lifts up his head -- he isn't sure when he dropped it, but it feels like he's lifting a hundred-pound weight on the end of his neck -- and focuses on the others ahead. They're walking away from him, he realizes with a burst of anxiousness. They're walking away and leaving him behind, and he doesn't want them to go, but he's too tired to keep chasing after them. It's not even that cold any more, it's actually kinda warm, and he just wants to take a break. The snow looks soft, the softest bed he's ever known, and he wants to call a break so he can lie down and sleep.

It's getting darker -- is the sun setting already? Are they back at Rosohna, with its eternal night? -- and his blurry vision catches on the sight of Caleb's hair, a copper flame of warmth in all the cold. He wants it, yearns for it with a hunger and heartache that escapes words for the moment, and he tries to raise his voice to call out to that warmth, but the world tunneling down to nothing around him takes all his words away.

  
  


* * *

Towards the back, but not  _ at _ the back -- that's been Caleb's place in the marching order that he falls into it by habit, even during a long dull overland trek such as this one. (Maybe not quite as dull as it could have been, considering the  _ remorhaz _ and its young -- he's already thinking of ways to try to avoid encountering any more of them, ways he can adapt the Tiny Hut spell to protect them.) Far enough from the front not to run head-on into trouble, but also not trailing at the back to make an easy target for anything coming up from behind. It's a comfortable place for him, solidly within the bounds of  _ how-things-should-be, _ that it takes him a shamefully long time to realize that things are  _ not _ all as they should be.

Molly is in the back with him and that's not unusual, he's often near to Caleb's hand when they are in dangerous territory.  _ Someone's got to look after our squishy wizard, _ he'd tease, and Caleb certainly isn't going to argue with that. But the tiefling hasn't spoken in the last hour and seventeen minutes and that  _ is _ unusual, and he's falling farther and farther behind.

Caleb glances back to check on Mollymauk just in time to see the tiefling stumble to a halt and stand their, swaying. He looks glassy-eyed, confused and unfocused and every instinct Caleb has goes off on red alert. 

"Wait!" Caleb calls out, and the rest of the Mighty Nein obligingly wait; stumbling to a halt in ones and twos and glancing around, looking back at him or at the snow around them to try to figure out what the danger could be.)

"Something is wrong with Mollymauk," Caleb says and that brings their focus back, Jester and Caduceus both turn around and make their way to the back of the party. Caduceus' long ground-eating stride and Jester's light skipping both make easier going of the snow than Caleb's heavy boots, and they reach the stricken tiefling just moments after he does.

"Is he sick?" Jester asks with concern, and she takes hold of her symbol to the Traveler and murmurs the words Caleb has come to recognize for  _ cure wounds, _ light and all-purpose healing. The magic washes over Mollymauk, but dissipates without finding a target. "You don't think he's poisoned, is he? Maybe something left over from when that remora swallowed him?!"

Caduceus holds out his hand and green light glows from it, then subsides. "I can't find any trace of poison or infection," he says, then crouches down next to Mollymauk and brushes a lock of hair back from his face. "Mister Mollymauk? Can you tell us what's wrong?"

Molly looks up at them, his face slack and his eyes unfocused; his lips move, but the words that emerge from them are slurred almost incomprehensibly. " 'R'w'hrrr yet?" he mutters; tries to get to his feet and makes one step before sinking down again.

Caleb looks him over from head to foot, his own heart sinking like a lump of ice in his chest. Shallow breaths, mumbled words, the tiefling lurching and wobbling in a parody of his usual nimble grace -- " _ Kältetod," _ he mutters, then searches for the word in Common. "He is too cold, I think. Much too cold."

Caduceus frowns, pulls off his glove and presses his bare skin against Molly's. "He doesn't feel particularly cold," he reports. "A little on the cool side, but nothing dangerous. And he's not shivering."

Molly stirs and mumbles, and his face looks like one giant bruise. "But he should be, in weather like this," Caleb retorts, his voice made sharp in worry. He picks up Molly's hands and chafes them between his own -- and Caduceus is right, Molly's skin is barely cool. But that's wrong, that's  _ wrong, _ he's felt Molly's touch against his skin before and it was blazing hot, a crackling bonfire that warmed but did not burn... 

"Tieflings run hot," Caleb says in sudden epiphany. "Mollymauk especially. He should be much, much hotter than he is now -- what feels normal for us is dangerously chilled for him. We  _ need  _ to get him warmed up."

By this time the rest of the party has realized what's wrong and fallen back, gathering around them. "He can have some of my flask maybe?" Nott volunteers, rummaging around in her mishmash of quilted layers for the enchanted piece of metal. "A solid shot of whiskey will warm him up!"

"Better not," Fjord cautions. "A drink of whiskey might make you  _ feel _ warmer, but it doesn't actually do much at all to heat you up -- actually makes you chill down faster."

"Then what are we going to do? It's miles still to Uthodurn, I don't think he can walk that far." Jester wrings her hands together, her face scrunched up in dismay. 

"Can't you do anything for him?" Beau demands. "You have all those fancy fire spells, don't you?"

Caleb flinches. "Those a-aren't exactly -- I don't want to  _ burn _ him, Beauregard!"

"No, of course not," she says quickly; her blue eyes dart over the situation, the terrain, taking everything in. "But you could, like, make the hut here, couldn't you? It's always warm in there, and maybe you could make a fire and heat him up quicker."

"That might be for the best," Caduceus agrees. "If we can get a fire going, I can try to get some tea into him."

"That could take hours -- we won't get to Uthodurn before nightfall if we make a pit stop out here," Fjord says. "And this isn't exactly the safest place to bivouack. There could be more of those things out there."

"We won't get to Uthodurn before nightfall with him like this, either!"

Molly's hands catch at his and Caleb looks down at him, feels his heart wrench at the misery shining from Mollymauk's face. Tears leak from the corners of his eyes, crystallizing in his eyelashes. "Don't leave me behind," the tiefling says, and Caleb can't tell how much of their discussion he's taking in and how much is the cold-induced fog of confusion. "Please, Caleb --"

"There is no fear of that," Caleb assures him, letting the others continue arguing over their head. "We will not leave you, Molly. We are just deciding the best way to help you, but we would never leave you behind."

Molly's grip tightens, yet at the same time feels tenuous, as though the slightest flexing of Caleb's hands could snap his fingers like brittle twigs. "We left Yasha," he whispers.

Caleb's heart twists and snaps in two in his chest and for a moment he cannot move, cannot think of anything to say; because Mollymauk is right, of course, at the same time he is so very wrong.

"Fjord, Jester, do you think you can carry his things?" Caleb says, interrupting the argument still going on. He digs into his pockets and pulls out one of his cocoons, the silky fibers catching on his rough fingertips. He tugs loose the strands and turns them, one over the other, from one hand to the other as the murmured incancation leaves his lips.

The magic follows his direction, flows out from his hands and settles on Mollymauk, wrapping around him like a cocoon, like the blanket Caleb only wishes he had to offer. The tiefling's familiar form shifts and blurs, warping and for a moment Caleb is afraid that Molly is fighting against the magic -- but either he realizes what Caleb is doing or he's too far in his delerium to resist. The boundaries of his shape collapse on themselves, color and form spiraling down into themselves until all that is left on the folds of Mollymauk's cloak is a long, sinuous coil of whiskers and fur.

Caleb picks up the ferret carefully in his hands, soft and warm and fragile. The ferret's fur is mostly dark grey with pale lilac bands masking its face; when it stirs in his grasp and opens its eyes, they gleam ruby red.

"I hope this will be warm enough, my friend," Caleb says softly as he snaps Frumpkin away, appearing disgruntled a few yards away in Beau's arms, and drapes the ferret that is Mollymauk over his neck in his familiar's place. Under his scarf, against the skin of his neck, the space ought to be warm enough to keep Mollymauk stable until they can reach shelter.

The rest of the trip is quiet, subdued compared to their usual bickering and chaos; Jester doesn't even sing any of her usual time-passing ditties. They all focus on reaching the underground city as soon as possible, racing the sun across the sky in the all too fleeting hours of daylight. Caleb re-casts the spell for Polymorph twice during the trip, and hopes that they can make it to shelter before he runs out of higher-level spell slots.

Caleb spends the walk alternately worrying about Mollymauk and worrying that there will be some further trouble once they reach their destination. It would be  _ just their luck _ to get there only to find that the city is besieged by winter wolves, or that they have a particular grudge against tieflings or that there is some intercenine dispute between their family and the Clays, or any one of a hundred different disasters that could play out that would keep them from taking shelter there. The rest of his mind cannot help but focus on the warm weight around his neck like-and-yet-unlike the comforting weight of Frumpkin. At least he can feel Mollymauk breathing, feel the shallow beating of his heart in this new form, and know that if nothing else, he is alive.

  
  


* * *

Molly comes back to consciousness in an unfamiliar room, staring up at a stone ceiling marked with hundreds of tiny chisel marks that make up swirling fern-leaf patterns. His head is foggy, his legs burn with muscle strain, and he feels stiff and chilled all over, but nothing like the brushing cold that was his last clear memory. He frowns at the carvings; "Where am I?" he says aloud.

"Mollymauk?" a familiar voice comes from nearby. Molly quickly tries to sit up, only to clutch at the edge of the bed as the room spins around him; but when his vision clears he sees the red-haired wizard sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed. Clear blue eyes search his face, a frown creasing his forehead. "You are... yourself again, ja?"

"Who else would I be?" Molly says, before thinking about all the ways the answer to that question could go wrong. "You know what, forget I asked that. Is this Uthodurn?"

"Yes, at a place called the Broken Stool," Caleb answers. Molly can't help himself; a giggle escapes his mouth before he can clasp a hand over it. Caleb smiles too, so that was worth it at least. "The others are out exploring, looking for a vendor who might sell mithral. Ah. I had strict instructions from Caduceus for you to drink this as soon as you woke up."

As the wizard goes over to a small table running the length of the wall, fiddling with something, Molly takes stock of his situation a little more. He's wearing a set of clothes he definitely does not recognize, loose linen trousers and shirt in undyed grey; his hair is mostly dried, only a little dampness lingering at the roots. The room is comfortably warm but under the covers it's downright toasty; feeling around with his feet he is able to locate and pull up a large, hot stone wrapped in a thick cloth that's been heating the bed.

"Do I want to know whose clothes these are?" Molly asks when Caleb comes back, holding a small wooden tray with a carafe and a steaming mug on it. 

"They are just an extra pair that the innkeeper was able to lend us, while your own clothes were drying," Caleb says. He sets the tray by the bedside table and hands Molly the cup; the tiefling takes a gulp of it and isn't surprised to recognize one of Caduceus' tea blends. It's a little bitter, but the warmth of the liquid fills his mouth and cascades down his throat in a wash of melting relief. That feels  _ so _ much better.

"And who was the lucky soul who got to undress me?" Molly smirks. 

But Caleb does not smile. "Caduceus, but I do not think it was a lot of fun for him," he says quietly. "More than anything he was relieved that you would not lose any fingers or toes to the cold. He was very worried about you. We all were."

That takes some of the fun out of it, and Molly takes another drink to cover his loss. Flirty humor is good to deflect, to keep the other party on the off-foot; it doesn't work so well against this earnest concern. "Remind me to thank him when he gets back," he says instead, and Caleb nods.

Then the wizard shifts and clears his throat, brings his hands together to clasp between his knees. "I, ahh, I understand if you are not feeling your best," he begins carefully, "but I think we should... talk... about some of the things you said when you were delirious."

Molly freezes, feeling a bolt of mortification and dread cascade down his spine as his mind goes into overdrive review of all the embarrassing things he might have blurted out inadvertently. 

"I told you that we would not leave you behind," Caleb says quietly, and Molly finds himself able to breathe again. Then freezes back up as he realizes what track the conversation is taking instead. "And I ahh... I meant that, speaking for myself at least and... and for the others. We would not ever leave you behind if we had any choice in the matter. Not if there was any other way. What happened with Yasha..."

He trails off. Molly looks down, fiddling with the teacup in his hands. Funny, normally Caleb's the one to avoid eye contact, but right now Molly doesn't want to think of what the other man might read in his gaze.

"I get it," he says finally. "I don't have to like it, but I get it. Sometimes things happen that just suck, and there's nothing you can do about it. You all don't have to coddle me, I'll get over it."

"I would not ask you to  _ get over _ grieving the loss of your friend, Molly," Caleb says quietly.

"I'm not -- she's not fucking  _ dead,  _ Caleb!" Molly snaps back reflexively. He regrets it a moment later, but he can't call it back.

Caleb shakes his head slowly. "No, she is not dead, but she is gone," he says at last, and the words hit Molly like a punch to the gut. "She is gone, but you still love her. You miss her, you wish you could see her again but know that it would only bring pain. You don't know if things will ever be all right between you again, you don't know if that is even possible any more. And you do not even have the closure of death. You don't get to mourn and move on."

Molly stares at Caleb, shocked into eye contact at last, and he recognizes nothing but sympathy and understanding in his gaze. He tries to say something, once, twice -- but all that comes out when he takes a breath to speak is a bitten-off sob. 

He ducks his head, fists bunching in the sheets and the light of the fire wavering madly in his vision, only to feel a warm steady body move carefully up against his own. A long pause, as though Caleb is consulting some internal reference guide on 'how to comfort people' and is turning to the correct page, and then Caleb's arm comes up and rests tentatively along his shoulders.

It's stiff and awkward and so perfectly  _ Caleb _ that in the end that is what breaks Molly's composure, sends him careening against Caleb's chest as the sobs break out of him. Because Caleb is so stiff and awkward, so reserved and unsure, he's so much  _ like her, _ and he'd hoped for so long that Caleb and Yasha would be friends because they were so alike and he wanted them both to have more friends and be happy and see that they didn't have to be alone...

"We have not given up on her yet, you know," Caleb says at last, when Molly's sniffling has died down somewhat. Molly can't see his face but he can hear the quiet resolution in his voice. "Fjord has a theory that this sword they are making can be used to kill that thing, the Laughing Hand, and perhaps then Yasha will be freed."

That's enough to get Molly to sit bolt upright, spine stiffening in shock, and he looks at Caleb with wide eyes. "I -- really?" he says. "I, uh... I missed that, I think. I didn't realize."

Caleb nods. "We would not have left Yasha if there had been any other choice, and we would never leave you if we had any other choice," he says. "You were not wrong what you said earlier, that sometimes shitty things just happen and there is nothing you can do about them at the time. 

"We have all lost things -- you and I, the others, Yasha too. But I think maybe -- maybe we are coming to a time when we have the strength to get some things back, too."

A sudden surge of gratitude wells up in Molly -- maybe Caleb's just saying this to make Molly feel better, but if so he's doing a good job of it, and  _ if he means it -- _ Caleb is scary smart and determined and Molly truly believes that if he put his mind to it there's nothing he can't do. If he says there will be a way to bring Yasha back then there will be, and if there isn't, he'll  _ make _ a way.

On impulse Molly leans forward, drifting into Caleb's personal space just slowly enough that he can stop him or move away if he wants.  _ He doesn't. _ And that's all the invitation Molly needs to kiss Caleb soundly on the lips.

Caleb's lips feel warm against his own, dry on the outside but when he parts them in surprise that's enough to feel a moist breath of air, trace the soft surfaces shyly with his own tongue before leaning further into it. Caleb is warm, and soft, and smells a little bit like crackling ozone and dry paper, and Molly drinks it in for a long timeless moment then.

At length Caleb leans back, breaking the kiss, and puts an arm up between them. Molly instinctively tries to follow him, pouts when the hand on his chest stops him. "I ahh -- it is not that I have an objection," Caleb says quickly on seeing his look of dismay. "It is only that -- you were very sick just now, and you are grieving. I think that you are, ah, I do not think you are really in the right place for this sort of thing emotionally."

And Molly has to gape at the sheer audacity of that, the pot calling the kettle black, as if he wouldn't have happily jumped Caleb's bones  _ months _ ago if he'd been in the  _ right place for this emotionally, _ but there's a tenuous edge to his thoughts right now that tells him that as little as he likes it, Caleb is right. He sighs. "Fine, but we're going to talk about this again in the morning," he warns.

"Fair enough." Caleb nods. He glances over at something on the wall Molly can't see from this angle. "Does that mean that you will sleep more, now? The others will not be back until later, but Caduceus said that you would likely be tired for the rest of the day."

"Yeah, I could sleep," Molly says with a yawn, nestling back down under the covers and bunching the sheet around him. The bed really is comfortably toasty, the more so with Caleb on it to share the space. "What about you? Got some reading to do?"

"Mollymauk, how long have you known me? I  _ always _ have more reading to do," Caleb tells him gravely, and there's a hint of a smile on his face when Molly laughs. "It will not bother you if I keep the lights on, will it?"

"Nope," Molly says with perfect truth. Caleb gets up for a few minutes to rummage around in their things and comes back with a book Molly doesn't recognize; he must have picked it up back at Kravaraad or here in Uthodurn. He climbs onto the bed next to Molly -- on top of the sheets, not under them, which is disappointing, but even without any extra layers Caleb is sweating slightly in the overly warm room. 

It hadn't occurred to Molly before now that if the room is noticeably warm to him, it would be uncomfortably so for a human -- but Caleb gives no sign that he wants to leave. And that, more than any amount of blankets or hot stones, follows Molly down into a snug and cozy slumber.

He dreams of hearthfire.

* * *

~end.


End file.
